The Community Cycling Center: Bigger than just Bicycles
By Ideas Collide
A local nonprofit makes a difference in our communities during the holiday season.
The Community Cycling Center (CCC) has been working alongside the community to broaden access to bicycling and its benefits for over 27 years!
Today, you can find CCC’s work throughout Portland:
- Inside Public Schools through STEM programs and after-school Bike Clubs
- In North Portland where a no-cost bike shop called The Repair Hub serves a large affordable housing neighborhood
- At the bike shop itself in the Alberta Arts District where staff prevent thousands of pounds of metal from entering the waste stream through their recycling and salvage work. (The shop also offers Low Income Commuter Services such as a 30% discount alongside any other service you’ll find at a big box bike shop)
- And so many more programs that serve marginalized communities who have a desire and essential need to access bicycles.
“There’s something really special about watching kids riding a bike for the first time knowing that it’s just the beginning of longer journeys and happy rides. It makes these events that much better.”
-Event Volunteer
Our favorite part about this BIPOC-led nonprofit is their big picture: it’s not just about the bikes.
The Community Cycling Center fosters the power of accessible bicycling to enable healthier lifestyles, sustainable transportation, and simple joy and playfulness – just a few reasons that we are proud to sponsor them. Early in this nonprofit’s life, CCC did something that differentiated them from other bike communities — they spoke with local community members about barriers that prohibited them from utilizing CCC’s bike shop.
During the Understanding Barriers to Bicycling project, a key mindset of the CCC team was “aiming to listen more than they talked” — an approach Ideas Collide agrees is essential when tackling complex issues. By this method, CCC, alongside local policymakers, has been able to brainstorm more effective solutions for issues like a lack of safe bike routes.They are happy to announce they are bringing the Understanding Barriers to Bicycling back to have an updated understanding of how to best serve the Portland community.
In this season of giving, CCC hosted their annual Holiday Bike Drive to give the gift of bicycling to our local community.
During this event, CCC and its partners delivered 102 safe, refurbished bicycles, new helmets, and provided bike safety education to children from low-income households –that’s 102 families who now have access to all the benefits that cycling has to offer.
“Ideas Collide’s collective commitment to inclusion extends into the broader community. Empowering people of all backgrounds to enjoy the freedom, exhilaration, and mobility biking provides is a cause I’m proud we can support.”
-Ryan Palmer, Associate Account Director
In the marketing world, learning how to connect with your audience is essential to creating an effective business that makes an impact. The Community Cycling Center chose to do just that, and in turn, continues to create a safer, more inclusive, and more accessible community. Ideas Collide encourages all people to listen more than you talk and aim to truly understand the people around you –even if it’s just friends, coworkers, or family. In doing this, you can create a more inclusive, diverse community for ALL people – especially those on bicycles.
We are excited to announce that, as a partner of the Community Cycling Center, Ideas Collide has donated ,000 to the Holiday Bike Drive because of its continued positive impact within our local community. We encourage our readers to contribute to this amazing Portland cause.
